Hello! I’m April L. Ford—author etc. Thanks for stopping by.
I grew up in Montréal and studied creative writing at Concordia University before earning my MFA in fiction, with a concentration in teaching in higher ed, from Queen’s University of Charlotte. My debut novel, Carousel (Inanna Publications, 2020), received the International Book Award for LGBTQ Fiction, and my debut story collection, The Poor Children (SFWP, 2013), won the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Award for Fiction.
I’m also the author of three chapbooks: big Small mountain town (Cactus Press, 2025), People Are Metaphors and Goodbyes (Cactus Press, 2024), and Death Is a Side-Effect (Frog Hollow Press, 2019). My short story “Project Fumarase” received a Pushcart Prize in 2016 and was anthologized alongside work by writers I admire, including Zadie Smith, Colum McCann, Joyce Carol Oates, Bob Hicok, and Ann Beattie.
My fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in journals across Canada, the United States, and Europe, including Grain, The Lascaux Review, and SAND. I’ve been a writer-in-residence at Uncross Foundation and a Robert Johnson Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
I previously taught creative writing at the State University of New York at Oneonta. Now I teach high school students with autism in Québec’s francophone public system and lead poetry workshops for youth living in residential care. Animal welfare and food security occupy permanent spaces in my life; I volunteer with a community lunch program and share my home with three rescue cats.
April L. Ford – author, etc. 